My guitar collection

1 Conversation

This is really for sad guitar anoraks only. Just thought I'd warn you.

I own 6 guitars and they all have names. I don't know why I started naming my guitars exactly but I like to think I've used a bit more imagination than some of the famous guitar players (e.g. Eric Clapton and Chris Rea).
I once had a guitar called "Tinny piece of s**t" for the obvious reason. Needless to say I no longer own it.

My current guiatr collection is as follows:

CONSUELA:
This guitar is an Alhambra 4P Classical guitar. The back and sides are made from a lovely dark Rosewood and it has a Solid Cedar top. The machineheads are gold plated with pearloid buttons.I normally string it with D'Addario Pro Arte Normal Tension strings. She is a very classy Spanish lady, hence the name. She has a lovely soft mellow tone. I'm not very good at classical playing but I love to play this one. I did have an Alhambra Espana called Conchita for a bit but this one is much nicer.

MIDNIGHT CLOUD:
This is an Ovation Celebrity CC157 super shallow bowl electro-acoustic guitar. It is a Korean made licensed Ovation copy, with a lyrachord bowl back, a spruse top,mahogany neck, rosewood fingerboard and walnut bridge. The neck was painted in a matt black which has got a bit shinier over the years with playing and the colour of the top (which inspired the name) is a black to grey sunburst. This colour looks really nice but for some reason, Ovation see fit to call it Barnboard!
This is strung with a custom set of strings I get Rotosound to make up for me. The gauges are the same as Ernie Ball Rock and Blues (10, 13, 17 plain 30, 42, 52) but are in Rotosound's Country Gold which, as well as being a much longer lasting Phosphor Bronze, have a Piano string design with a bare core over the bridge which adds a bit extra sustain.

Despite being a light gauge string with easy bending, this guitar sounds really good, although quite quiet. It sounds great miked up and pretty good through my Marshall amp. The pre-amp is abit old fashioned now and I have to take the strings off to change the battery but it is stil a lovely guitar.

PRECIOUS:
This is an Ovation model 1115 12 string Electro-acoustic guitar. It is older than me. It has seen better days (The neck has been reglued on,& there are lacquer cracks on the top) but still plays really well and sound lovely. It has no pre-amp so I have an external one which plugs into the jack socket.
This U.S.A. made guitar has a lyrachord deep bowl back, a solid sitka spruce top, a 5 piece mahogany/maple neck,with rosewood fingerboard and a walnut bridge.

Tolkien fans will understand the significance of the name when I say I bought it for myself 2 days before my birthday.

SPIKE:
This is a Gordon-Smith SG2. It is basically a British Hand-built copy of a Gibson SG with a couple of major differences. It is better made,and it plays and feels much better. I sold my Gibson SG (called Bulldog) to buy it.
It has a 2 piece mahogany body, in a satin finish cherry red with a set mahogany neck which has a rosewooed veneer fingerboard.
It has 22 frets. Not being all glossy like the Gibson, this guitar has a gorgeous feeling neck. it also has a very low action, even after I raised it by a couple of mm to improve the tone.
It is strung with Maxima Gold 10-46 strings.
Electronically, it has 2 Humbuckers (Gordon-Smith's own) Each with a volume, tone and a single coil switch giving 8 different pickup settings. It has different value treble bleed capacitor for when it's a single coil or when it's a humbucker and you can squeeze a tad more treble out of the tone controls.
It therefore is very versatile and can go from creamy Gibson to twangy Tele at the flick of a switch.
This is the easiest of my guitars to play but I can't do everything on it due to the lack of vibrato and not having 24 frets.
It is called Spike after the bulldog in Tom & Jerry.

DESERT GOLD:
This is a Patrick Eggle Berlin Pro with all the trimmings.
It is a gorgeous British made guitar with a small double cutaway mahogany body with a 5A grade quilted maple top finished in Antique Gold(a translucent golden amber colour). Depending on the angle of the light this can go from a dull looking butterscotch Angel Delight look to the most gorgeous, stunning , undulating golden sand-dune look. This flashy look is backed up by the set mahogany neck which has a quilted maple veneer on the headstock, an ebony fingerboard and abalone & mother of pearl inlays in the shape of falling maple leaves.
This is a very classy, tart's handbag guitar. Probably half the cost of the guitar is cosmetics.
It has Sperzel Locking Machineheads and a WIlkinson Convertible VS100 vibrato that works really well but takes a lot of setting up.
This guitar has 9 different pickup settings from the 2 Kent Armstrong designed pickups, and sounds really good on clean settings. YOu can get a lovely vintage strat sound on it that sounds much better than any modern strat can do. It sounds really god on lead soloing with distortion but is a bit mushy on chunky distorted rhythms.
This is guitar is strung with Maxima Gold 10-46 strings.

VELVET DREAM:
This is a highly customised Washburn MG44. It is a wide super-strat body finished in a gorgeous metallic dark blue with a bolt on maple neck and maple fingerboard. the Scratchplate is a sort of pearloid that looks very nice and marbly as opposed to some of the tacky looking pearloids (like on the white JEM). It has a Takeuchi built Floyd Rose licensed double locking vibrato on.
The dots are offset to one side on the fingerboard and look really nice. It has an HSH pickup configuration with a single volume & tone.

After taking it apart several times, it now has 3 Dimarzio pickups in it, A PAFPro at the neck, an HS1 in the middle and a FRED at the bridge. The toggle switch has been replaced by 3 separate on/off switches and the voloume & tone controls are now separate push-push switches for single coil switching on the Humbuckers.
It has 17 different pickup settings, at least 12 of which sound good.

This is my main guitar because you can do everything on it. My other guitars do some of the things better, but this one can do everything.
It is a mid priced Korean made guitar and so the action is a bit higher than the other two electrics but it doesn't feel that high.

This is the one guitar that I could never sell.I pick my guitars carefully and love all of them but this is "The one" it is my equivalent of Clapton's "Blackie", Rea's "Pinkie", Rossington's "No 1", Vaughan's "No 1", Gallaghers "No1" and May's "Red Special".

Whether playing licks, Country or Marvin twang, soft or crunchy blues, Rock, metal, or Satch/Vai type instrumental playing, this guitar can cope with anything I throw at it, it sings sweetly when I stroke it gently, barks gruffly when I beat it and squeals like a banshee on heat when I dig in and squeeze it.

My advice to anyone buying a guitar is: Try out anything and everything you can: Don't be ruled by your preconceptions or anybody else's ideas on what you should buy. Always, always play any guitar you are going to buy first. Play it for as long as you can through your amp or the nearest equivalent if you can. When you think "I absolutely MUST have this guitar" then that's the one to take home with you.
I fell in love with this guitar within 5 minutes. I played it for about an hour to make sure. It was a good enough guitar to upgrade it like I did when I had the money but it was the right guitar for me right from the start.


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